1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a refrigerator having a height-adjustable door, and more particularly to a refrigerator having a height-adjustable door, the height of which can be adjusted easily.
2. Description of the Prior Art
FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the structure of a conventional side-by-side type refrigerator. FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing a support structure for rotatably supporting a door of a refrigerator according to the prior art.
Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional refrigerator includes a body 10 provided with freezing and refrigerating chambers 11 and 12, which have front openings, and freezing and refrigerating chamber doors 21 and 22 for covering/uncovering the front openings of the freezing and refrigerating chambers 11 and 12, respectively. The freezing and refrigerating chamber doors 21 and 22 are rotatably supported on the upper and lower ends of both sides of the body so that the freezing and refrigerating chambers are covered/uncovered.
A conventional structure for supporting the doors 21 and 22 will now be described with reference to FIG. 2. The doors 21 and 22 are supported so as to rotate relative to the body 10, in order to cover/uncover the front openings of the freezing and refrigerating chamber 11 and 12. The doors 21 and 22 have hinge holes 23 formed on their bottom surfaces in the longitudinal direction. The body 10 has hinge frames 31 fixed to its lower end and hinge shafts 31a positioned on the hinge frames 31 so that the hinge shafts 31a are inserted into the hinge holes 23 and rotatably support the doors 21 and 22.
The hinge frames 31 are fixed to the body 10 with bolts or by welding, for example, and have hinge bushes 32 fitted to the hinge shafts 31a. Particularly, the hinge bushes 32 are configured so as to enclose the hinge shafts 31a and have rotation shafts 32a, which are inserted into the hinge holes 23 and rotatably support the doors 21 and 22 directly.
The upper ends of the doors are similarly supported by hinge devices (not shown) so that the doors can rotate. It can be easily understood by those skilled in the art that the hinge devices (not shown) for supporting the upper ends of the doors do not bear the weight of the doors, but simply provide shafts for rotation of the doors, while the hinge frames 31, shown in the drawing, directly bear the weight of the doors.
Such a conventional refrigerator has a problem in that the freezing and refrigerating doors 21 and 22 may not be completely level with each other due to an assembly tolerance, or they may be displaced downwards by repeated opening/closing operations. This results in a discrepancy in height between the doors 21 and 22.
In order to remove such a discrepancy in height, the doors 21 and 22 must be completely separated from the body 10 and the hinge frames 31 must be repositioned in an inefficient and inconvenient manner, because the height of the doors 21 and 22 are determined in the initial assembly process.